At first sight, the Mitsubishi AMiTY VP pen tablet appears unchanged from the one we reviewed in the December 1997 issue of Pen Computing Magazine. Closer examination, however, reveals a redesigned keypad with the cursor control key diamond at the bottom instead of above the numerical keys. This arrangement is more functional and makes the unit easier to use. Mitsubishi also replaced the marginal 810MB disk drive with a 1.6GB unit which offers some breathing room for all those notoriously disk-hungry Windows 95 applications. The rest of the AMiTY VP carries on pretty much unchanged. With low-power mobile Pentium 233 and 266MHz processors appearing in several other pen tablets, we wonder why Mitsubishi chose to stay with the relatively dated AMD AM5x86 133MHz processor which provides performance at the 75MHz Pentium level. This is adequate to run Windows 95, but upgrading to Windows 98 could seriously degrade performance.
Other than that, the AMiTY VP remains an attractive choice if you’re in the market for a mobile decision support or data collection computer. It is light and handy, and the keypad makes data entry a breeze (at least for right handers). Mitsubishi’s “Diamond Fine Passive” screen is sharp, rock-solid, and offers good brightness and contrast. The Wacom electromagnetic digitizer is very precise and offers excellent pen control. Two small Lithium-Ion batteries offer up to 2.5 hours of operation.
The VP has two Type II PC Card slots, a PS/2-style keyboard/mouse port, an infrared port, and microphone and headset jacks. Serial, parallel, and VGA-out connectivity is provided through an extended connector cable. The optional floppy drive uses a PC Card interface.
If you can live with the processor limitation and the lack of a CD-ROM drive, the Mitsubishi AMiTY VP pen tablet is an excellent choice for vertical market applications. -
–Conrad H. Blickenstorfer